The life and doctrine of Sir Edwin Chadwick / by Sir William Job Collins.

  • William Job Collins
Date:
[1924?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The life and doctrine of Sir Edwin Chadwick / by Sir William Job Collins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    from excrement-sodden sites, from filthy street surfaces, from impure water, and from overcrowding in private houses and in public institu- tions. That the entire removal of such conditions by complete sanitation and by improved dwellings is the effectual preventive of diseases of these species, and of ordinary, as well as of extraordinary, epidemic visita- tions. That when such diseases continue to occur their spread is best prevented by the separation of the unaffected from the affected, by home treatment if possible, if not, by providing small temporary accommoda- tion; in either case obviating the necessity of removing the sick to a distance, and the danger of aggregating epidemic cases in large hospitals, a proceeding hable to augment the death-rates during epidemics.”’ Chadwick saw the urgent need of a radical reform in our local government system before any real advance on the lines he desiderated could be made. He urged the unification of local government services, specially in the metropolis, and he laid it down as a ‘‘ sanitary axiom that the duty of carrying fouled water owt of houses and out of towns, clear of the sites, constantly through self-cleansing channels, should, with the duty of carrying water into houses, devolve upon one and the same authority, and that such authority should be a competent and responsible public one.”’ The Municipal Corporation Act of 1835 was innocent of any sanitary intention, no duties or powers in regard to housing were conferred on local authorities for another 20 years, and the country at large waited till the ’seventies for urgently needed public health legislation, although certain towns, such as Liverpool, under private Acts, had appointed medical officers of health in the ’forties of last century. It was indeed through the Poor-law and especially its Central Board that sanitary reforms were then promoted, in default of available municipal author- ities, especially in rural districts. Although Chadwick’s three-volume report was published in 1842, it was not until confirmed by the Health of Towns Royal Commission in its two reports of 1844 and 1845, and after two ineffectual attempts at legislation in 1846 and 1847, that the Public Health Act of 1848 and the Nuisances Removal and Diseases Prevention Act of the same year reached the Statute-book. In 1847, after the dissolution of the first Poor-law Board, Chadwick had been placed on a Royal Commission to inquire into the sanitary condition: of London. It exposed the lack of unity in metropolitan administration, with its seven different Commissions of Sewers and 100 different paving authorities, its competitive water-supplles from un- filtered river water, purveyed by profit-earning companies on the intermittent system, its open or stagnant sewers, and innumerable cess- pools. The Public Health Act of 1848 was adoptive only, did not apply to London, and was limited in duration (unless renewed) to a period of five years, nor did it give effect to all that Chadwick desired, but it nevertheless for the time being stabilised and strengthened the General Board of Health with Earl Shaftesbury (at that time Lord Ashley) as unpaid chairman, and Chadwick, and later Southwood Smith, as its paid members. It was efficient, economical, assiduous. It applied strong action and stimuli from headquarters to lethargic local authorities and, proceeding by provisional orders rather than by private Bills, it gave umbrage to Parliamentary agents whose emoluments were thereby reduced. Walter of The Times renewed hostilities and opposed the metropolitan works of the Board in association with the Commission of Sewers. Hudson, the railway king, and Toulmin Smith and Joseph
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